How Not to Do Your Taxes
by The Intuitive Special
Summary: Modern AU: Hiccup has to file his taxes. Meanwhile Toothless is hungry. And Hiccup is about to learn that hungry dragons and exposed tax information are not a good mix. Based on the book series.


_I'm really surprised at how much I enjoy the How to Train Your Dragon books. So I thought I'd pay homage to them with my very own short fic about them. This is a modern AU but Hiccup is a slightly older book Hiccup. This is based on real events, though they happened to a friend, not me._

* * *

**How Not to Do Your Taxes**

**by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III**

**Translated from the Old Norse by KateMarie999**

* * *

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III was a wiry teenager with bright red hair that stuck up, no matter what you did with it, and a completely ordinary face that was easy to overlook in a crowd. He was not the sort of person you would pick as the hero of a story. And, in fact, ordinarily I would say something about looks being deceiving and that he _was_, in fact, the hero of this story. However, this, dear reader, is a short story and so the ordinary rules don't apply. Some stories do not have heroes. Some stories are merely scenes from a someone's life. And this story happens to be one of them.

Hiccup had recently secured his first job. His father, Stoick the Vast (which is what everyone at Hiccup's church called him after he'd won the yearly pie eating contest four years in a row), had been very pleased with his son for acquiring employment, though he was slightly disappointed that it hadn't been someplace more interesting than the local library. Regardless, he had been hounding Hiccup for the past few weeks to turn in his tax forms lest he suffer the wrath of the IRS or, as Hiccup jokingly called it, the Hairy, Scary Librarians. He wasn't quite certain why he called them that since they weren't really librarians but he liked the alliteration of it all.

On April 12th, Hiccup began to pull out his various tax information and carefully set them out on his desk. He would be doing his taxes the moment he returned from work. This morning, however, he had something else on his mind. His dragon, a miniscule common or garden dragon, was being very uncooperative and Hiccup was going to have to leave for work soon.

"Come on, Toothless!" Hiccup pleaded with the little green beast in Dragonese, the truly fascinating language that all dragons spoke. "Just eat your wood and vegetables and you can have some nice oysters when get back from work."

"T-T-T-Toothless want oysters n-n-now!" the dragon retorted hotly. "Don't want to eat w-w-wood or p-p-p-potatoes. They yucky!"

"Yes, yes, I know." Hiccup said dismissively, quite used to this argument by now. "But you've got to eat these to keep up your strength. You don't want to go hunting with weak muscles."

"Toothless only has w-w-w-weak muscles because poor Toothless s-s-starving!" Toothless shrieked indignantly. "You v-v-very mean master!"

"I wait on you hand and foot!" Hiccup said irritably. "And you know it! Now eat this before I have to leave!"

"M-m-maybe Toothless eat the potatoes if you add b-b-b-b-bacon!" Toothless exhaled a few smoke rings.

"I haven't got any bacon bits, you ate them all last night." Hiccup explained as patiently as he could.

"Then n-n-no deal!" Toothless turned his snout up at the food. "T-T-T-Toothless eat oyster or n-n-nothing at all."

"Fine!" Hiccup whisked the food away, looking furious. "Starve then!"

"Y-y-you'll be sorry!" Toothless shrieked as Hiccup grabbed his car keys and headed for the front door.

Hiccup paid him no heed. Toothless, furious at his horrible, cruel master, immediately got to work searching the room for some food. After tearing through a box of stale Froot Loops, all of the leftover Easter candy, and the rest of the egg carton, Toothless licked his chops and began to search for another snack. His piggy little eyes seemed to light up in excitement when he entered Hiccup's room. The perfect meal seemed to have been left out all ready for him.

* * *

Hiccup had had a very good day at work, all things considered. His coworker Fishlegs had recommended a very good book and he had spent allof his lunch break reading it. And then his boss commended him on his excellent alphabatizing. The day would have been perfect.

_Would_ have been.

When Hiccup returned home from work, he needed only to take one step into the front door to know that something was wrong. There was multicolored dust on the ground that smelled suspiciously like cereal. It appeared to have been stuck to the wood panels with chocolate and egg yolk.

"Toothless!" Hiccup called.

The little dragon zoomed foward, looking very pleased with himself, and spat out a small scrap of paper. Hiccup's heart sank.

"Oh no!" he exclaimed, suddenly running to his bedroom. "No, no, no, Toothless, tell me you didn't. Ohhh _Toothless_!"

Scattered all over Hiccup's bedroom were the shredded remains of the tax forms he'd been so careful to put out so he'd remember to get them done. Toothless fluttered over his head, apparently proud of his handiwork.

"T-T-Toothless think your p-p-papers are tasty." he licked his lips. "C-c-c-could use some salt though."

"_Salt_?" Hiccup spluttered, grabbing a fistful of his tax forms, which now resembled confetti. "I've got to go to my job and ask for new tax forms and you're talking about _salt_? Oh for Thor's sake, Toothless, how many times have I told you not to eat what I leave out on my desk?"

"T-T-Toothless forgot." Toothless said in a mock casual voice which clearly told Hiccup that he ws lying through his gums.

"Of course you did." Hiccup snipped at him, tossing a handful of tax confetti into his trash can.

"So c-c-can Toothless have his oysters?" Toothless asked unabashedly.

"No, you cannot have your oysters! Do you have any idea how much trouble I'm going to be in now that you've chewed these to bits? I'm going to have to file for an extension and then my father's going to-"

"Wh-wh-what do you mean no oysters?" Toothless swelled indignantly. "You a mean, nasty, selfish master!"

Hiccup felt anger rise in his chest but he shoved it down. The last thing he needed was another shouting match with his dragon. It simply wasn't worth it.

"Well these are useless now." he said morosely as he stared at the shredded paper on his desk. "Better file the extension before I get audited. I don't even what to know what my father would do if that happened."

"Serve you right!" Toothless flapped around the boy's head. "For starving p-p-p-poor Toothless!"

And so, internally cursing his misfortune, Hiccup got out his computer and began the incredibly complicated process of filing for an extension.

Ordinarily, there would be a moral to this story. However, not all stories have morals. I suppose the best thing I can give you is this little word of advice: never leave important documents out where hungry pets can destroy them.

And if you don't have pets, I suppose this story was rather pointless. But life is a funny thing, sometimes the oddest bit of advice can benefit you later on. So I'd suggest you keep that in mind for later.

* * *

_As you can tell, I was trying to go for Cressida Cowell's writing style here. My best friend's dog completely destroyed her tax forms and we started acting out a conversation between book Hiccup and Toothless regarding this. I thought it was funny and I hope you did too!_

_Don't forget to review!_

_~KateMarie999_


End file.
